President’s Message: After a month away from SPC, I attended the wonderful reading by Patrick Grizzell and Mary B. Moore on August 7. Thanks to Mary Zeppa for making this great evening happen! I hope you can join Penny Kline and me for the release of the new collection by Mike Owens from Random Lane Press on October 16th at SPC. I’ve been working with Mike for the last two years to finish The Way Back, and we’re proud of this thoughtful book of poems. Mike, who grew up in the Sacramento region, is serving a life sentence in prison, and while he can’t attend, many of his family and friends will be on hand to read from the book and celebrate this new collection of his poems. Profits from the book will help to support Mike’s wife, Maurita, and their three sons. In addition, a percentage of book sales will go to support the Find Your Voiceprogram, a creative writing program for incarcerated youth run by 916 INK. Come and hear the poems, and if you like them, buy the book. I think you’ll find it a strong collection of work. If you’re interested in helping with the marketing of The Way Back, let me know at randomlanepress@gmail.com. Also don’t miss the irrepressible CHARRON SMITH, an MC, DJ, writer, slam poet, spoken word artist, blogger, and a media mogul, along with Marvin Xia, a first generation ABC (American Born Chinese) and aspiring writer and relative newcomer to the Sac poetry slam community will be heating up Hot Poetry in the Park at Fremont Park on August 21, at 7 pm, with open mic to follow. Thanks to Bethanie Humphreys for hosting Hot Poetry in the Park again this summer! Monday, Sept. 4, Labor Day, 7:30 pm, Jennifer O’Neill Pickering and Pat L. Nichol read their poems focused on labor and more. Come hear poems about jobs and unions. Wear your union t-shirts. Big open mic on theme. Hosted by Wendy Williams.
If you are both a poet and a visual artist, submit to Jennifer Pickering for this year’s Sable and Quill art show and reading. Sable and Quill’s 9th Anniversary is in Jan 2018 at SPC. Send submissions to or get details at jenniferartist09@gmail.com
-Bob
Memorial: Theresa McCourt Thomas Mitchell A.M. Clarke Samantha Archuleta Nicholas Kyle Edwards Katherine Breger Zachariah Rush Stephen Cipot III
Theresa McCourt Fond Memories of a Poet and Dear Friend On April 30th, 2017, Theresa McCourt passed away, but left behind cherished memories of her glowing smile, and her beautiful, thought-provoking poetry. Theresa was an amazing supporter of the Sacramento Poetry Center and volunteered countless hours of work for SPC. She was a long-time poetry workshop participant, Editor of Tule Review, event organizer for the Children’s Multicultural Literary Festival, and volunteer for many poetry events throughout the community. Theresa was an amazing poet, and her friendship will be missed among many at SPC, along with the community she supported and inspired. Here is one of her poems published in the June 2008 edition of Poetry Now.
Getting Started Gimpy, ragged, shifting from stillness to motion, relearning after so many repeated efforts, that breath will even out, that heart, after the initial flurry, will recover an even beat, that hips and knees will be anointed a certain distance from the house. After one or two miles, the Achilles will even shed its shadowy film of scarring, grown anew from one night of stiffening sleep. Since first stepping onto the road, twenty-four years ago, I’ve listened to so many of my grumblings, a variety of complaints— all of them reciting what can’t be done, what I could be doing instead, what I’m not capable of.
THERESA MCCOURT
Autumn Sequel
1. Beyond the window, the geese rise-then float incandescently on the morning haze. 2. There is a different stillness listening to the parables of willows clinging to the hillsides, a certainty of larks singing to themselves. 3. Above the long fencerow, the crooked mountains, the curving moon swinging over the overarching sky. 4. Maybe tomorrow I will forget myself and think of how the world really is when the fading light shines on a heron’s wings.
THOMAS MITCHELL
Walking in the Woods together we move through the tall pines he tells me of the bad days his words reaching through the sounds of an early autumn there is a need here in the pale shadows the new morning rots like an open fruit
A.M. CLARKE
The Salton Sea
SAMANTHA ARCHULETA
that was the year we visited the Salton Sea the air was thick with death the beach was hot and still the bones of long-dead fish crunched beneath our steps and we were silent because it felt wrong to stir the air I raised my camera with diffidence. maybe it was too hot, maybe it was too bright but the soft swish of the sea seemed to beg me to drop the lens we walked along the edge of the water with our heads bowed the flies swirled around our ankles and our ears pelicans and gulls dipped and danced over the glossy mirror of water unaware and undaunted by the conditions. On the opposite shore we explored the shells of homes long abandoned, reclaimed by salt and time we walked through Salton City, past abandoned dogs, gutted trailers, half buried boats and sagging palms. It seemed like the residents of long ago packed only what they could carry and ran without a backward glance. The town felt hollow and out of place, stuck in time, eroded and ransacked. When we drove away, I watched the mountains in the rearview the town and the desolate sea were quickly disappearing behind the car, and the eerie silence that is settled over Salton City settled between us and has remained there ever since.
June Invention of age propels the lost society back into the arms of slavery. stranded machinery masses cast mankind away under speechless entertainment. What extinction we build. Adam’s youth now resolved to inhibition God limited through weights of forged material.
NICHOLAS KYLE EDWARDS
Musician in Red Sitting on the gray weather rocking chair splinters enter my back as it creaks back and forth keeping the beat. Sun fading, nearly down, but that don’t stop the heat from rising, as sweat meanders down my forehead to my chest and underneath my white stained linen shirt. The moist air brushes out the smell from inside the kitchen, Grandma’s gumbo. Silky smooth the red juices will stream side to side in my mouth, streaming through the walls of my cheeks. My mouth salivates waiting to be called in. Grandpa’s timeworn banjo sits comfortably and warm upon my lap as callouses begin to form again on the tired tips of my fingers I think of this past cold, dry, winter.
KATHERINE BREGER
Ode to Bipolar
ZACHARIAH RUSH “Their breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride...” — Lord Byron
(Mania) To you I owe the lightning of the mind, seething, illuminating, the fullness of ideas, genius clattering out prose, poetry, or painting— sleepless marvels—not still-birthing in dim waking (as others know waking). I walk scorched shores with seraphim... :(: (Depression) To you I owe a thousand gaping wounds, a hundred paltry suicides. my scars screech thru serrated lips scolding me for fatuous dreams except when pain pleases. I have cried out my spirit, plunging limp thru chaos after chaos: so little of my hope remains.
Nocturnal San Francisco is behind me, then Carmel, the Pacific Ocean is to my right, steep breccia cliffs on the left. The scintillating white and blue surf below these seaside hills show what is merely beautiful and austere. My car and its speed is a metaphor for what is easily ignored—non essential. You stop, and park, and look. Drive on, stop, and look again. The injustice is to what’s eclipsed by the trajectory of movement, between its beginnings and ends. Tonight I walked on the Carmel beach under a full moon that was snowing— the tide was out—walking to the song of the sea and fragrant air. And I ran. The moon unfurled a big white pearl on the trail of ocean, shining crests of waves like luminous flowers opening. And stars dropped chunks of light into the black bay that floated like loons particular to my private singularities. I stopped to notice the differences— for a long time I stopped, like a memory. Like a stranger at the door opening.
STEPHEN CIPOT III
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES Thomas Mitchell studied writing at California State University, Sacramento where he received his MA in English, and worked with his mentor, Dennis Schmitz. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the the University of Montana where he studied with Richard Hugo, Madeline DeFrees, and William Kittredge. His poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including THE NEW ENGLAND REVIEW, NEW LETTERS, QUARTERLY WEST, THE NEW ORLEANS REVIEW, CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY, CLOUDBANK. He taught middle school in Southern Oregon for 31 years, where he now lives on the coast with his wife, Linda. A.M. Clarke has been writing poetry since her early teens. She was born and raised in the panhandle of Florida and, after living in Utah for a few years, she has decided to give living in Sacramento a try. She currently lives with her boyfriend and two long suffering cats. Samantha Archuleta is a writer of poetry and nonfiction. She teaches high school English in Sacramento, CA where she lives with her husband and two dogs. Nicholas Kyle Edwards is an aspiring, Californian poet. Reflecting on America and individuality, his poems ooze Beatnik influence and existential philosophies. Studying philosophy at Sacramento City College and working in a local bookstore, Nicholas spends his time thinking on the big questions of ethics. Further, as an avid reader, he constantly inquires into the nature of knowledge. He takes long walks in a forest near his home, and he does so, all in pursuit of discovering his own writing, out of necessity , rather than desire. Katherine Breger, originally from Hollister California, enjoys writing poetry as a way to escape and express her thoughts. Her work is inspired mostly by romance, music, nature, and family within her life. Breger finds it very important to write what she knows or has experienced as a way to embody honest and pure emotion. Influences such as Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Phillip Levine inspire her to write every single day keeping her dedicated and grounded. Breger currently resides in Davis, California acquiring her multiple subject teaching credential from the University of California Davis. Zachariah Rush was born in Manchester, England, where his early poetry was published in small press anthologies. Since moving to the USA in 2007 he published the books 'Beyond the Screenplay' (McFarland, 2012), and 'Cinema & its Discontents' (McFarland, 2016), dozens of essays of film criticism and translated Albert Camus' 'L'étranger' into a libretto for operatic performance. In recent months he has returned to writing poetry. Stephen Cipot is a scientist for the U.S.E.P.A., writer, runner, poet. Awards include an Edward Albee residency. He assisted the US tour featuring Aeronwy Thomas and Peter Thabit Jones. Publications include: Veils, Halos and Shackles: International Poetry on the Abuse and Oppression of Women; PRISM: a Journal for Holocaust Educators; The Paterson Literary Review; The Seventh Quarry; LI Pulse; Korean Expatriate Literature; American Tanka; Anton Newspapers, GLIRC Footnotes.
Stark Perch by Jason Shapiro
Feather Dew by Jason Shapiro
Ascending at Twilight by Ali Lichtenstein
Rocky Shore of the Atlantic, Southern Maine by Ali Lichtenstein
California Landscape: Field and Sand Mine, Monterey Bay by Gillian Wegener
California Landscape: Marina with Paddleboarders, Monterey Bay by Gillian Wegener
Belle of Giverny by Bethanie Humphreys
Beetle’s Prayer by Bethanie Humphrey’s
P H O T O G R A P H E R S Jason Stephen Shapiro hails from a background in theater, photography, and radio. He Served on the American River Review as a fiction editor in 2012 at American River College, and was poetry editor for the Caleveras Station Arts & Literary Journal, before becoming Executive Editor at Sac State and is pursuing his M.A. in creative writing. Jason’s works are published in the ARR, The Gapped Tooth Madness, and Poetry Now.
Ali Lichtenstein uses her camera to capture mood, place, and memories. She taught women/gender studies and writing at Keene State College in New Hampshire before moving to Sacramento in 2014. Ali currently teaches ESL at Sacramento ESL, and multi-genre writing and fiber/mixed media at Women’s Wisdom Art, where she also serves as the Board Chair. Gillian Wegener lives and writes in California’s Central Valley. She is the author of a chapbook, Lifting One Foot, Lifting the Other (In the Grove Press, 2001), and two full-length collections, The Opposite of Clairvoyance (2008) and This Sweet Haphazard (2017) both from Sixteen Rivers Press. She is the founding president of the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center, and a former poet laureate for the City of Modesto.
Bethanie Humphreys is a writer, editor, and mixed media visual artist. She is also curator for the Sacramento Poetry Center Art Gallery, and hosts Hot Poetry in the Park. Her poetry and fiction has been published in several literary magazines including Nonbinary Review, Found Poetry Review, American River Review, and Sacramento Voices. Her goal is to further thecross-pollinization of literary and visual arts. See more at: facebook.com/BethanieHumphreysmixedmediaarts
UNDER 30 CONTEST WINNERS First Place: After The Sky Cracked by Stuart L Canton shards of words fell through the ringing thunder to smash windshields of drivers below who swerved off the road, and some said this was God’s will as the children cried tears of plastic that rushed down the black sewers to oceans; while the dam flooded with chunks of verbs, greasy hunks that reached the very brim until the weight pushed down the spillway and shredded the cash just under the rock, ripping through towns and farms hungry for action – and people on both sides got swept up and ground by the flow and somewhere in the storm like a metaphor without translation I thought I heard the clinging drifting farther Stuart Canton is 29 years old and spending his last year before thirty in Sacramento where he has just graduated from CSUS, where he won a Bazzanella award for poetry. While lacking the wisdom that comes from being above 30, Stuart has attempted to see beyond his youth and address issues of ecology with his writing, and has explored many methods such as concrete poetry and surrealism. His work has appeared in The American River Review, Calaveras Station Literary Journal, WTF!?, Poetry Now, and other local publications.
Second Place: Why Wait by Esti Shapiro The snake opened his eyes up to the sky and hoped that one day he could be free His mother appeared and said why so down who would want to be in the sky, not me. He grew up big with a wonderful life and home and often slithered up a hill to meet creatures he hadn’t met But then his mother appeared and scowled like an angry gnome and said you’re not old enough yet. Then one night while looking up to the sky the stars spelled out to him if you believe then dreams are reality The snake set out at once to explore the world and prove to his mother that he had more than enough maturity The snake from then on followed his dreams and never let anyone tell him to stop for he truly believed the words, Why wait. My name is Esti Shapiro and I am eleven years old. I am in the sixth grade at Shalom School and I live with my parents, sister, brother, two dogs, and three chickens. I enjoy playing soccer, piano, and doing gymnastics. My poem is about following your dreams and not letting anybody tell you not to.